College Students Turn Away From Landlines 383
prostoalex writes "You're as likely to find a landline in a college dorm as you're an old typewriter, according to this Washington Post article on MSNBC. While roughly 30% of college students had a cell phone 5 years ago, more than 90% have them today, resulting in student directories including out-of-state numbers instead of 4-digit extensions. More trivia on college students: 90% own a PC, 65% have broadband, 62% own a stereo system, 74% have a DVD player, 55% have a gaming system. What the Washington Post article also hints at, is possible tuition hikes due to the landlines dropped so quickly. "Six or seven years ago, telephones on campus were a cash cow," said Glenn Gaslin of Morrisville State College in New York."
90%? (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:90%? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:90%? (Score:2)
Actually, everyone on slashdot should read it. You won't be able to stop paralleling it with linux, firefox, etc...
Re:90%? (Score:2)
Re:90%? (Score:2)
Re:90%? (Score:2)
I'm guessing you mean U of M Minneapolis. If you're looking for non-Windows boxes, have you even looked in the c-sci department? Not only is it crawling with linux geeks, there's even cooler stuff in the super computing center. Be sure to check out TCLUG if in doubt, there are MANY linux using U of M students.
Re:90%? (Score:2)
Wheres the University of Minneapolis? If you're talking about the University of Minnesota _at_ Minneapolis, try CompSci, Education and Art.
old news? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:old news? (Score:2)
But we're catching up.
I am among those who switched to mobile-only while in college.
As a working adult, the only reason why I have a landline phone now is because I'm on-call 24/7/365.
Re:old news? (Score:2)
Of the people I know, maybe 20% have a land line of some form. Everyone else uses mobile exclusively now.
Re:old news? (Score:2)
Most of the people I know aren't geeks so don't have DSL or even internet access... I have a landline purely for DSL purposes - never gets used for anything else.
Stupid business (Score:5, Insightful)
In this case, tuition will go up because they stop making money on landline sales??? How about my damned cable company (or phone company) that charges me an extra $10 a month because I just want a highspeed internet connection but don't want their cable offerings or long distance plan?
How can they get away with this BS? It's like those computer stores that 'cash discount' their prices... Play on words to get around rules that prevent them from jacking up the price because you wanna pay by credit card...
Aren't there laws against this sorta crap?
Re:Stupid business (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Stupid business (Score:5, Insightful)
In this case, tuition will go up because they stop making money on landline sales??? How about my damned cable company (or phone company) that charges me an extra $10 a month because I just want a highspeed internet connection but don't want their cable offerings or long distance plan?
I'm not a business expert by any means, but as far as I understand the idea of business it is to have more income than your expenditure. If increasing prices are the only way of doing this, then so be it.
How can they get away with this BS? It's like those computer stores that 'cash discount' their prices... Play on words to get around rules that prevent them from jacking up the price because you wanna pay by credit card...
Credit card merchant services typically charge around 3% to process a credit card transaction, so retailers must build this cost into the final cost of the product they are selling. Would you prefer no cash discount is offered to customers who want to pay for a particular product using cash?
Re:Stupid business (Score:2)
Seeing as the merchant agreement with the credit card company says you can't charge extra for a credit card transaction, and a "cash discount" is just a different way of doing the same thing, I know I would prefer no c
Re:Stupid business (Score:2, Insightful)
What's fair about that? Why the hell should I have to pay a 3% "Visa Tax" for everything I buy if I pay cash? Why should I be forced by a couple of large organizations (Visa, Mastercard, etc) to buy their serv
Hope you're lying. (Score:3, Interesting)
And as a consumer, if I cannot pay cash, I will go somewhere else. I rarely buy on plastic, for several reasons. That includes the time I purchased a c
Re:Stupid business (Score:3, Interesting)
I attended Purdue University. One year I lived in Carey Quad, which happned to border the football stadium. Our parking lot was pimped out as premium parking during home games, so the actual residents got kicked out (ticketed, otherwise) so the alums could park.
I lost count at how many poor lot attendants I ripped a new one each Saturyday morning when I'd tried to park in the lot that I paid extra for (above and beyond standard room & board). I finally pitched such a fit
Re:Stupid business (Score:2)
I am with the previous poster. Credit cards are a convenience for the customer, in which the business is charged about 3% for Visa or Mastercard, another percent or two for Discover, which is yet another fee. They make businesses pay for it because they knew the cards wouldn't take of
Re:Stupid business (Score:2)
I'm in that boat. I don't have broadband because of it.
The reasoning with cable TV is they get away with it because they can play the broadband card to pull people away from satelite TV. In my area Comcast's penalty is $15, not $10 with a promise to increase soon. The phone company uses it to pull peopl
Re:Stupid business (Score:2)
As for the cable companies? Yeah, they're pretty much just screwing you.
Re:Stupid business (Score:2)
If you're getting charged for using a credit card, then you're using the wrong card. Hell, my main card actually gives money BACK to me out of what they charge businesses for my using it:
http://www.cibc.com/ca/visa/dividend-platinum-c
I generally cycle $2-3K a month of retail purchases through it, which has been good for a $300-$500 Christmas bonus on the card pretty consistently the last few years.
Re:Stupid business (Score:2, Interesting)
Just like the internet. They used taxpayer dollars to set it up, 401(k) money to subsidize its commercialization, and now we pay through every possible pocket to use it.
And the top investors still ran off with all the initial startup capital when the markets tanked.
And they still can't keep from selling our private information around in every possible databas
Re:Stupid business (Score:2)
Maybe you're in an alternative universe, but last time I looked, basic cable modem or DSL service is about $30 a month.
I don't consider that to be a lot of compared to the value we get from the service.
D
laws against this sorta crap.. (Score:2)
http://www.retailers.com/eduandevents/ask/askchar g eforcredit.html [retailers.com]
The difference between a surcharge for credit (which is illegal) and a disco
Re:laws against this sorta crap.. (Score:2)
You know, I've thought about this before... you are essentially correct. However, I think the reason why people have trouble with it is because these service companies don't itemize the bill "correctly." For example, on my cable bill I have 3 line items (excluding taxes and such): One for basic cable, one for extended cable, and one for cabl
Re:Stupid business (Score:2)
This is insightful? A university gets its funding from many different sources. If one of those sources gets cut (e.g. they make less money from phone service), then they either have to make it up elsewhere or drop some service they're providing.
Re:Stupid business (Score:2)
Buy a tv card, and split the cable. Cable TV for 10 bucks a month. You can even splice the cable and send it to your TV with no degredation in service.
This is how they do this. (Score:2, Flamebait)
I hate businesses that assume that you will buy certain services from them because they deem them 'essential', and when all of a sudden you don't, they jack up the price of the services you still do buy from them...
How can they get away with this BS?
Aren't there laws against this sorta crap?
Well,
Re:Stupid business (Score:4, Informative)
Those computer stores likely have to pay as much as $0.25 plus 5% of the purchase price as a fee to the credit card company. If they wanted to charge the same price for cash or credit, they're have to raise the price for cash purchases. Online computer sales from small vendors are lucky to have an 8-9% margin, so having to give away 5% to your credit card company would mean they wouldn't be able to stay in business.
What you should actually be upset about is contracts that credit card companies force on merchants that prevent the merchant from passing on the savings to you when you pay with cash. It's not too long ago that you used to be able to get a 3-4% discount on gasoline if you paid with cash. Now you pay the higher price either way because the credit card company tells the gas station owner that he can't accept credit cards unless the price is the same cash or credit. The same goes for PayPal. Sellers aren't allowed to pass the PayPal fees on to the buyer... For fixed price items this means the price is higher wether you use PayPal or not.
The situation is even worse with the new Debit Visa cards. The fees are higher for the merchant if the customer doesn't use their PIN than they are for regular Visa charges, but smaller merchants have no leverage to negotiate a contract that lowers those fees, and Visa won't allow the merchant to accept regular Visa cards but not Debit Visa cards. The merchant is also not allowed to charge you more to use the debit card as a credit card, so the merchant is forced to raise all of their prices or to eat the fee.
It's the credit card companies that are evil... Not the stores that figure out a way to pass the savings on to you when you prevent them from paying credit card transaction fees.
Re:Don't forget the rest... (Score:3, Insightful)
Or you can just pay off your balance every month, which means you don't pay interest, but do get some level of fraud protection and often cash back.
Welcome to the Undergraduate Experience (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Welcome to the Undergraduate Experience (Score:2, Informative)
Having said that, I own a mobile as well, but the need for one is a lot less when you already have a landline.
Technology evolves (Score:5, Insightful)
To be frank, a change like this doesn't count as news, it's enevitable with evolving technology that things will change. This is just one of the many steps that are happening towards the much larger changes that are bound to come.
PAYGO (Score:3, Informative)
It's far more attractive than a contract, and calls are normally cheaper on the mobile than on the uni phone system anyway.
That's great and all ... (Score:5, Interesting)
Never fails, despite warnings to the contrary. So I INSIST that they take the call -- right then, right there. I see a few others stealthily reaching into their backpacks to turn theirs off.
I don't have any problems
Re:That's great and all ... (Score:3, Informative)
around here _EVERY_ student in the lecture hall has a phone in their pocket, the lecturer has a phone and i'm betting that some have even multiple phones.
and it's not a problem.
another note: not one of my friends who have moved like me out from their parents have landlines - there's just no point in getting one.
Re:That's great and all ... (Score:2)
Re:That's great and all ... (Score:5, Funny)
The reason I don't do it is because I'm afraid of "This is his dad. His *weep* his mother just *weep* passed away and we need him to *weep* come now to identify the... the... *bawwwwwwwwwwwl*"
Re:That's great and all ... (Score:3, Funny)
Re:That's great and all ... (Score:3, Insightful)
That's why he does it.
D
Re:That's great and all ... (Score:2)
It's even funnier when it's the lecturer's wife phoning him to see when he'll be home that evening.
Re:That's great and all ... (Score:3, Funny)
Hilarity ensures...
Re:That's great and all ... (Score:2)
Re:That's great and all ... (Score:5, Funny)
Prof:
---BRRRRRRIIING---
[Amanda looks up all embarassed]
[Prof walks over to Amanda, picks up the cell phone from next to her handbag.]
Prof: Yo.
Phone:
Prof: What you want?
Phone:
Prof: Yeah! This is Horatio. What you want with my woman?
[the other end hangs up]
It never fails to amuse... (funny how some students just don't learn).
Re:That's great and all ... (Score:2)
Re:That's great and all ... (Score:3, Insightful)
Being a (soon to graduate) college student in the US, I can say that aside from one or two exceptions, I have never had a professor with that attitude. If you kept in mind that you're expected to practice some common courtesy, like stepping outside to take calls, and turning phones off during exams, things were ju
Re:That's great and all ... (Score:2)
As for me, I never change away from vibrate so I never forget to change it to vibrate. I also turn it off during tests.
Re:That's great and all ... (Score:5, Interesting)
I know another professor who elaborately staged an event where he made it look as though he snatched a student's phone out of her purse and stomped on it. He heard rumors about himself at other colleges in the area within a few weeks. Apparently the act of violence made a big splash.
Re:That's great and all ... (Score:2)
Not for me, it is called "respect" and it comes from the education. Unless you're really sick or handicaped and forget to turn your cellphone off, I can't think of any excuse for someone not to do this.
Should have never been a cash cow (Score:5, Insightful)
And here we see a basic problem. Trying to earn more than a fair return because you have monopoly power in a certain situation.
They should never have been a cash cow in the first place, just a service provided to students with a modest rate of return.
all the best,
drew
cell site == cash cow (Score:3, Insightful)
cell phone users need cell sites
cell phone companies pay money to let people house their cell sites.
so cell sites generate cash. Only problem is that cash probably does not go into telecommunications, and that that cow is more of a calf.
Re:Should have never been a cash cow (Score:2)
Jesus Christ! The article headline should be... (Score:2, Funny)
It's like Best Buy with beds and showers!
Land Lines as a Cash Cow (Score:3, Insightful)
Why can't Universities run more programs at or near cost, rather than try to bilk as much money as possible out of people?
Re:Land Lines as a Cash Cow (Score:2)
Students are perceived by some administrations as a "product," and if the university makes a good product, then others will go to that university. All with the ultimate goals that donations and prestige will follow.
Re:Land Lines as a Cash Cow (Score:2)
This seems fine. But then they should strive to maximize the quality and rate of good students leaving the University. Phone service is required to speak with both collaborators and with vendors. It is against a University's interest to price it outside of the reach of students & they have
What I always wondered... (Score:2)
Anyone in college or dealing with college students in dorms know what the popularity of the LCD/plasma TVs is? From the smaller 13" ones to the 40- and 50-inchers?
Re:What I always wondered... (Score:2)
For a couple years in college, I just had a TV tuner in my computer, with a VCR acting as the real tuner with a good remote.
Re:What I always wondered... (Score:2)
I never understood what was so exciting about turning on the TV. Certainly there's worthwhile stuff on there, b
Surprised? (Score:5, Insightful)
I remember using the community phone in the dorm hallway 16 years ago. I'm shocked that practice went on for another 11 years!!
Re:Surprised? (Score:2)
HA....
I remmeber standing out in the cold because we didn't have halls. Our dorms opened up to the outside. $5 worth of quarters would get me about 10 minutes on the phone, and the call was barely going 200 miles. What a luxury it would have been to stay inside my warm dorm room talking as long as I want.
Oh, and this was the mid-90s, right before cell phones became popular and
Back in the old days (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Back in the old days (Score:3, Informative)
Computer: P-133, 32 MB RAM. Win 95 til I upgraded to a grey market copy of 98SE. Networking was accomplished with a 9600 baud ROLM dataphone. Serial cable. Opened a direct connection into the IRIX machine we used TIN, Lynx and PINE from. About 50% of the campus was using a computer in their rooms, but very few had Dataphones. There was a waiting list. I applied in Sept. when I got there and had it in November.
Phones: All landline, ru
Universities should work with Cell Provider (Score:4, Insightful)
1. push-to-talk capability within Univ phones
2. free instant messaging within Univ phones.
3. Bluetooth and/or cable for internet access using the cell phone.
4. Free calling to/from a student's home town.(this would need a DID in student's home area code)
I'm sure there are more features that student's would love to have and be willing to pay for. Also, a cell phone company would love the contract to be the sole supplier to a college campus.
--Keith
Re:Universities should work with Cell Provider (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Universities should work with Cell Provider (Score:2)
That's why I'm considering Vontage. I can set up the number in any areacode. Outgoing calls to US and Canada are free in the $25 plan. My only hangup is finding an affordable broadband provider that doesn't rook you for not subscribing to their other services (POTS, Cable TV, whatever)
It's just indicative of where phone use is headed. (Score:5, Informative)
Take my wife & I as an example.. We had 2 landlines here in our house. One was ours, the other is paid for by my company (I work from home). During a 2 month period, our home phone got shut off no less than 5 times. And before you start to think it - no, we paid the bill each month, on time. Each call to Verizon customer service was greeted with an endless sea of automated menus to troubleshoot your line. Thankfully, you can keep mashing down the 0 key to get a human on the phone.
Each time this happened, we were told that we could expect to see a technician at our house in some ridiculous amount of time, usually 3-8 days. Then, mysteriously, the line would start working again. The explanation was always some inane excuse like, "someone unplugged your line at the CO" or "we had a mux that failed". We complained about rotten service to CS reps, Supervisors, Supervisors of Supervisors, and even to the office of Ivan Seidenberg (the CEO of Verizon for those who don't know). Know where it got us? Nowhere, fast.
Tired of the crap, we voted with our feet. We were spending about $50 a month for the Verizon line, plus about another $35 for my wife's mobile. We popped over to the Cingular store and got a couple of phones on a family plan. I got a new number and we ported the home phone number over to the wife's mobile. Now our phones cost about $65 a month. We can call any Cingular customer (now including AT&T Wireless users) for free, have free nights & weekends, 850 min/mo and rollover. No coverage problems around here, and it all "just works".
And hey, if you decide to do something like this - make sure you port to a carrier OTHER than Verizon Wireless. That is, if you're doing it because you're sick of Verizon. Otherwise, if you're happy with them, do whatever you feel like.
Re:It's just indicative of where phone use is head (Score:3, Interesting)
Disclaimer: I work for Verizon Wireless
Re:It's just indicative of where phone use is head (Score:3, Interesting)
Are we missing the real reason? (Score:3, Insightful)
Beyond that, dorm rooms are for sleeping and you certainly don't want some annoying phone ringing when you're there.
Re:Are we missing the real reason? (Score:2)
For a Landline, when you call the number, you are calling the location.
For a Cell Phone, when you call the number, you are calling the person.
So, on a campus, when you don't always know where someone is (library, quad, so-and-so's room, class, his/her own dorm room, etc), Cell phones can be extremely usefull in not having to call around to a few different places (not all of which might have phones). The dorm phone on the other ha
Oh, landLINES. (Score:3, Funny)
what about Australia? (Score:2)
Re:what about Australia? (Score:2)
Each has good plans for certain segments of the population... If you are only down for a short time, and unlikely to have many Australian people to contact regularly, then a cheap prepaid option (from any of the four) will probably suffice.
If you're heading to Canberra, are you going to be spending much time outside the city? GSM service falls off pretty sharply outside the urban centres in Australia... Also, Telstra is generally th
it's a much practical solution (Score:2)
OMG... my old school! (Score:2)
Of course, when I was there, we didn't have phones provided by the college my first year.. You could get a phone, but you had to order through the local phone company
Obvious.. (Score:2)
It's obvious that this would happen. I live with 3 guys, and had 3 roommates last year too. We all have/had cellphones. Last year, my one roommate came to me asking to get a land line because he was going over his minutes with his cheating liar girlfriend, who was by far the worst person I've ever met in my life.
Like most of you other college slashdotters, my wallet DOES have a bottom. I
Small wonder (Score:2)
If they had cell-phones now, like they had then, no doubt about which way I'd go. Not to mention the convienience of have a phone with you everywhere you go.
Failure to keep up with the times (Score:3, Interesting)
Another case of a monopoly doing themselves in.
The universities are moaning about their loss of revenue from the land-line cash cow but it is their own fault. If they had installed sufficient 802.11g wireless routers throughout campus (as well as around the bars off campus) and provided wireless VoIP service, they could have undercut the cell phone providers. People who live off campus don't buy land line service from the university, anyway, and the ones who live on campus rarely stray off campus so they could be tempted by a service that allows unlimited calls (some cellular companies offer unlimited calls by they have limited coverage but systems with reasonable coverage charge exhorbitant rates for daytime minutes). And the system could be setup to deliver calls to your PC when you are in your dorm room. A typical university already has much of the infrastructure. It already has a high speed network. It already owns the buildings where the access points would be installed. It already has right of ways in the form of steam tunnels located under the sidewalks allowing access points to be added between buildings easily. It already has a PBX with trunk lines to connect to landlines.
No, the school wouldn't have a monopoly but it would be competing against cell phone services that cost more than the university charged for land lines.
Bandwidth would be an issue so they would need to go with lots of access points with small antennas located inside buildings or along sidewalks rather than a few access points with big antennas on the roof.
only reason to have a landline (Score:2)
The ONLY calls we get on the landline are ones we don't want. Verizon selling something, non-proffits calling for money, politicians begging for votes.
How Dare You! (Score:2)
I happen to be a rather new typewriter, thank you.
cash cow (Score:2)
like the meal plans at colleges. they make it so expensive and force you to get it if you live in the dorms. they only give you crap food and give you so little to eat. the cafes are only open for a short period of time so if you have classes during those hours, it's your lost.
US Public colleges highly motivated to play telco (Score:2)
Not Likely to Be an Issue... (Score:2)
Good for them (Score:3, Interesting)
Fewer land lines = fewer cordless phones (Score:3, Insightful)
When I was a college student, my PC was my stereo, DVD player, and gaming system, and now it's my television as well. I've never tried VOIP, but it could be my phone someday, too.
Re:It makes me wonder... (Score:2)
Re:It makes me wonder... (Score:5, Insightful)
By the second year I'd wised up that:
(a) most lecturers didn't even use the books, and those that did gave out photocopied notes.
(b) for homework purposes the library had several copies
(c) half the books were written or co-written by the lecturers an they were getting a cut.
So for the second year I bought no books at all. Didn't miss them.
Re:Turing away from Landmines? (Score:2)
What I find interesting was that I didn't boggle at the notion that students were as likely to have a land mine as a typewriter.
-aiabx
Re:Turing away from Landmines? (Score:2)
I can just see a cluster of co-eds walking across the quad, when one trips a mine and half the group flies into the air in a flurry of legs and papers.
Might be a bad thing to see on a campus tour. Enrollment would certainly suffer. "Our largest problem here at MIT is one of attrition due to casualties. . ."
Re:Turing away from Landmines? (Score:2)
I doubt the dean would have noticed a few blast craters.
No extra charge at MSU (Score:4, Informative)
Re:No extra charge at MSU (Score:5, Informative)
Re:I'm in high school (Score:2)
No girlfriend: Check.
Re:not here (Score:2)
If you speak of T-com you may be right but it's just one of your options.
Not true (Score:2)
http://www.q-dsl-home.de/ [q-dsl-home.de]
True, there has to be a physical line installed in your house. (Though it hasn't to be in active use) But show me a building in Germany without a phone line installed.
Also you can have phone from one company (like http://www.nordcom.net/ [nordcom.net]) and DSL from another. Or just use the installed landline for DSL with QSC like I do and have a mobile phone from o2 http://www.o2online.de/o [o2online.de]
I dunno (Score:2)
I don't have anything to do with either companies.
Re:not here (Score:2)
To get DSL you need a voice line... that said, voice lines are relatively cheap (about £11 a month now that they've forced everyone onto option 1...). The last mile is owned exclusively by BT but there are ways of reducing the costs by eg. routing through call18866 for analogue calls.
Cable though is available in many areas but it's patchy (eg. NTL are available on the opposite side of the road to me but not this side.. there's even an NTL green box outside my window but
Re:True (Score:2)